Utah firm plays a role in "Atlas Shrugged" movie

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A Utah movie distributor is part of a grand marketing experiment, which will test whether Tea Partiers can be lured into movie theaters.

Rocky Mountain Pictures, a Utah firm whose specialty is religious and politically themed films, is putting "Atlas Shrugged, Part 1," the first of a planned trilogy adapting Ayn Rand's landmark 1957 pro-capitalism novel, in theaters this week. (It's not scheduled to open in Utah theaters until April 15 — and the distributor has already let it be known that it won't be screened for those local commie pinko movie critics.)

Some of Rocky Mountain Pictures' past releases include "Billy: The Early Years," a biography of preacher Billy Graham, and the Ben Stein anti-Darwin screed "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed."

The Hollywood Reporter details the marketing campaign for the movie, which depicts government do-gooders as the villains and stalwart individualist capitalists as the heroes. That campaign has included email solicitations from astroturf groups like FreedomWorks, which has aligned itself with the Tea Party.

The movie may be a hard sell with thinking conservatives, though. Conservative humorist P.J. O'Rourke reviewed the film for The Wall Street Journal's blog Ideas Market, and found it wanting.

The movie, O'Rourke wrote, "treats its source material with such formal, reverent ceremoniousness that the uninitiated will feel they've wandered without a guide into the midst of the elaborate and interminable rituals of some obscure exotic tribe. Meanwhile, members of that tribe of 'Atlas Shrugged' fans will be wondering why director Paul Johansson doesn't knock it off with the incantations, sacraments and recitations of liturgy and cut to the human sacrifice."

O'Rourke, though, stopped short of panning the movie - mostly for fear of Rand's rabid fans.

"I don't have the guts," O'Rourke admitted. "If you associate with Randians - and I do - saying anything critical about Ayn Rand is almost as scary as saying anything critical to Ayn Rand. What's more, given how protective Randians are of Rand, I'm not sure she's dead."